The apparent back-to-back murders of two American freelance journalists by the same group are unprecedented in CPJ's history. The beheadings on camera in a two-week period of first James Foley and then Steven Sotloff appear to be an acceleration of a pattern--dating at least to Daniel Pearl's killing in 2002--of criminal and insurgent groups displaying the murders of journalists to send a broad message of terror.

"The federal government is fully committed to continue
fighting against impunity in cases of killed journalists," Brazilian President
Dilma Rousseff told a CPJ delegation during a meeting on Tuesday in Brasilia,
the country's political capital. Accepting that deadly violence against the
media is a detriment to freedom of the press, Rousseff said her administration
will implement a mechanism to prevent deadly attacks, protect journalists under
imminent risk, and support legislative efforts to federalize crimes against
freedom of expression.

Glenn Greenwald would like to go home to the United States,
at least for a visit. But the Guardian
journalist and blogger is afraid to do so. He still has material and
unpublished stories from his contacts with fugitive whistleblower Edward
Snowden that he believes U.S. authorities would love to get their hands on.
The nine-hour detention
and interrogation of Greenwald's Brazilian partner David Miranda by British security
services at London's Heathrow airport in August has only compounded his fears.

Carlos Lauría, CPJ's Americas senior program coordinator, provided testimony before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of US House of Representatives on Tuesday. Lauría emphasized that violence and government harassment are the main emerging trends that illustrate the major challenges facing the press in the Western hemisphere.

From São Paulo to Istanbul to Cairo, coverage of
street demonstrations has re-emerged as an exceptionally dangerous assignment
for journalists. Since June 1, CPJ has documented more than 120 attacks on the
press amid the civil unrest in Brazil, Turkey, and Egypt--the biggest surge of
attacks in such circumstances since the uprisings that swept the Arab world in
2011. My colleague Özgür Öğret described the danger
in Turkish streets last week, and CPJ issued several alerts on assaults on the press in Brazil. The
massive protests in Egypt have already resulted in more than three dozen anti-press
attacks, including one fatality, and bring to mind the record-setting violence
of two years ago.

Tags:

I have always been convinced that
journalism is an instrument that transforms people and realities. I believe in
this profession as a means of change, even if this implies some risk. I've been
beaten almost to death and at another time have had to move to another city because
I went to the limit of my possibilities in search of the truth in which I
believe. But nothing is sadder than the psychological terror imposed by an
omniscient and omnipresent enemy. An invisible enemy that hides in anonymity
and is able to take away the ability to live with one's family and freedom of
movement.

Tags:

One
month after their colleague Rodrigo Neto was gunned down on the street
after eating at a popular outdoor barbecue restaurant, the journalists of Vale do Aço, Brazil, were indignant. Denouncing
a sluggish investigation and the possibility of police involvement in the
murder, they strapped black bands to their wrists in a sign of solidarity, put
on T-shirts bearing Neto's name, and took to the streets to demand justice. Six
days later, Walgney Assis Carvalho, a photographer who claimed to have
knowledge of the crime, was shot twice in the back by a masked assassin as he
sat at a fish restaurant. The journalists of Vale do Aço are still indignant, but now they are terrified.

Gerardo Ortega's news and
talk show on DWAR in Puerto Princesa, Philippines, went off as usual on the
morning of January 24, 2011. Ortega, like many radio journalists in the
Philippines, was outspoken about government corruption, particularly as it
concerned local mining issues. His show over, Ortega left the studios and
headed to a local clothing store to do some shopping. There, he was shot in the
back of the head. His murder underlines the characteristics and security
challenges common to many of the killings documented as part of CPJ's new Impunity
Index: A well-known local journalist whose daily routines were easily
tracked, Ortega had been followed and killed by a hired gunman. He had been
threatened many times before in response to his tough political commentary, a
pattern that shows up time and again on CPJ's Impunity Index.

"Leave me in peace. Wallow
in your garbage," Brazilian Chief Justice Joaquim Barbosa said in a rage when
a reporter with one of the leading national newspapers, O Estado de Sao Paulo, tried
to ask him a question Tuesday at a meeting of the National Council of Justice
in Brasilia, the capital. Stunned by Barbosa's reaction, the journalist
demanded an explanation. "You are a clown," was the response he received from the
president of Brazil's highest court.